Thursday, June 23, 2005

Britain wanted Sunni led Iraq

According to this article, from Newsday, Blair & Co were in sharp disagreement with the US over the make up of a new Iraqi government:

"What sort of Iraq we want?" the British documents asked rhetorically. The first possibility, it said, involved a "Sunni military strongman" who, in return for aid, would abandon weapons of mass destruction and respect human rights and ethnic minorities. But, the report noted, the arrangement could result in Iraq ending up in the hands of another Sunni dictator.
A second possibility, the paper asserted, could be a "representative, broadly democratic government would be Sunni-led but within a federal structure. The Kurds would be guaranteed autonomy and the Shias access to government. Such a regime would be less likely to develop WMD and threaten its neighbors. However, to survive, it would require the US and others to commit to nation building for many years."